Cynthia Tucker: Science funding dips in U.S., soars in China

[Dudley_DUright]

We Americans have become quite comfortable with our relatively recent designation as the world's only superpower. That's a mistake, since we won't hold the top spot long.

In a generation or so, the Chinese will probably be ranked as a superpower, too. Indeed, if the United States doesn't get a grip on science and math education, the Chinese will be standing alone astride the globe, while we have fallen to a second-tier standing.

It's easy enough to see how that could happen. Chinese officials (and parents) take science and math seriously. High school and college students work hard to master chemistry, physics, biology, engineering. For that matter, so do Indian students. American students, with precious few exceptions, don't.

<snip>

What a difference a couple of decades makes. Back in 1957, the United States was startled when the Soviet Union beat us into space with the successful launch of Sputnik. Washington responded with a massive investment in math and science education. (Some problems can be solved by throwing money at them.) The result came just over a decade later: Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969 and established a U.S. hegemony in science that has lasted until now.

But it probably won't last much longer. Just as the Chinese are learning the enormous benefit of pouring money into science education and research, our science infrastructure is under attack from religious extremists. And the rest of us are letting them get away with it.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19053

[jwirr]

1. And when China overtakes the former U.S.

tech advantages we will set here and cry. We stiffle our sciences and refuse to educate our children for the future and then wonder why we are losing out.

[patricia92243]

2. Bush's ability to destroy reaches every facet of our nation. n/t

[kineneb]

3. ok Kansas, this is why you are so wrong!

go believe in your fairy dust, while the rest of the world laughs and passes you by...and while you sit back there in your recreated Middle Ages, starving and cold, the scientific types will leave for other countries where they are appreciated...keep rubbing those two stick together- you might get fire...oh wait, the preacher says that is sinful and heathen...

[Dudley_DUright]

6. Pharyngula blog has a great post about Kansas

What do you think of when someone mentions the word "Kansas"? Maybe what leaps to your mind is that it is a farming state that is flat as a pancake, or if you've been following current events, the recent kangaroo court/monkey trial, or perhaps it is the drab counterpart to marvelous Oz. It isn't exactly first on the list of glamourous places. I admit that I tend to read different books than most people, so I have a somewhat skewed perspective on Kansas: the first thing I think of is a magic word.

Niobrara.

Late in the 19th century, there was a stampede to the American West to search for fossils of those spectacular beasts, the dinosaurs. Entrepreneurs everywhere were in on it—P.T. Barnum bought up old bones for his shows—and even scientists got caught up in the bone fever. Edward Drinker Cope of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences and Othniel Charles Marsh of Yale were famous rivals in the bone wars, sending teams of men to Wyoming and Utah and Colorado and other Rocky Mountain states to collect the bones of the extinct terrestrial behemoths of the Mesozoic. Kansas was also a target, most famously by the Sternberg family, but it had a different reputation: Kansas is the place to go to find sea monsters.

There is a geological formation in Kansas called the Niobrara Chalk. Actually, it's not just in Kansas; it extends all the way up into Canada, but the Niobrara has been exposed by erosion over much of northwestern Kansas, making it easy to dig into. And this is where the Sternbergs and Cope and Marsh went hunting for sea monsters.

more...

http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/niobrara/#continue

[triguy46]

4. Kansas

Say hello to your new daddy.

[DinahMoeHum]

5. There's an Arab saying about progress. . .unfortunately very true.

"My father rode a camel.
I drive a car.
My son flies a plane.
His son will ride a camel"

We're coming very close to the last line, IMO.

:evilgrin: